You can sometimes find incredible things in the desert! And not just when you’re close to collapsing from heat and/or thirst. Mirages do not explain everything. Deserts around the world hold their share of surprises. Works of art, video games, shops…
1. AND video game cartridges
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A documentary was even made on this astonishing discovery. Produced by Atari for its console, just to build on the success of Steven Spielberg’s film, the ET game was a monumental oven, symbolizing in itself what is sometimes called the video game crash of 1983. A disaster with millions of unsold items that, according to legend, were buried, along with consoles and other games, somewhere in the desert, in New Mexico, before being covered with a thick layer of concrete . When a company gets approval from the New Mexico Department of the Environment to dig and see if the legend holds any truth in 2013, millions of ET cartridges and consoles are indeed found. A lot was also sold at auction for 37,000 dollars, including a copy of ET still in its packaging, estimated at 1537 dollars.
2. A swimming pool
We stay in the United States, in the Mojave Desert where a somewhat bent Austrian painter has built a cold water swimming pool. Open to all, free, it allows you to cool off in the middle of the desert. The problem is that if its existence has indeed been proven, it can be difficult to find it. And yes because the desert is big.
3. A Prada store
The stuff is totally absurd but at the same time, who are we to judge the value of an artistic performance? Because that’s what it’s all about. A Prada store in the Texas desert, with real Prada stuff on display, with no salesperson. So inevitably, the store was looted the day it opened. Subsequently, far from being discouraged, the instigators of the project equipped the shop with armored windows and tamper-proof doors. Well mocking the thing…
4. Spirit of the Desert
An elaborate geometric shape in the desert, visible from the sky. Does that ring a bell? Well, there, we are certain that the extraterrestrials have nothing to do with it. This work of art made in 1997 in the Egyptian desert, covering an area of 100,000m2 is indeed the fruit of human labour.
5. Hand
A gigantic 11 meter hand half buried in the Chilean Atacama Desert to represent the victims of injustice during the military dictatorship. It was the sculptor Mario Irarrázabal who created this impressive work of art which is still visible today.
6. A boat
In Egypt, the Ancients liked to put a lot of stuff in their tomb. Especially the powerful ones. This is how a ship almost 20 meters long was discovered in 2016. The most surprising thing is that the body that accompanied it was not that of a personality but that of a commoner. Why ? How ? The mystery remains intact.
7. A kangaroo skull with horns
Well, no huge horns either huh. Excavations in the Australian desert in 2002 unearthed kangaroo skulls with surprising protrusions above the eyes. A now extinct species which, according to specialists, was at least as harmless as the kangaroo we know today. Still, at the beginning, this story of horns, it’s a little freaking out.
8. The Hunter
Not a real hunter but a 4 km long white engraving, discovered in the Australian desert again, near Adelaide. The route corresponding to the width of a small road, with a depth of about one meter. It was later proven that this huge and improbable fresco was the work of a man. The latter having died before being able to deliver his secrets, the manufacture of this painting only visible from the sky remains quite mysterious. We just know that he was a priori not alone when he got to work and said that his drawing was visible from space. Which is not the case. So much for the aliens.
9. Ryan Singleton’s Body
The body of this model from Georgia was found in the Mojave Desert in 2013, two and a half months after she was reported missing. Body from which the eyes, lungs, liver, kidneys and heart had been removed. The autopsy having ruled out a crime motivated by the resale of Singleton’s organs. No evidence was found on the spot to prove that the man had been murdered…
10. A lake
One day it’s the desert and we come close to sunstroke and then all of a sudden a lake 18 meters deep appears! This is what the inhabitants of the Gafsa region in Tunisia experienced in July 2014. A lake quickly taken by storm by its last, very happy to be able to swim there and cool off. Unfortunately, it seems that the water was suddenly released following extractions carried out in the area. And if that’s true, the water in question is probably harmful to your health…